Hill's contract for 103 council flats on Maidstone's Springfield library site was £37.45m in February. A notice filed on 22 September puts stage one at £219m.

Maidstone Borough Council has filed a procurement notice that puts the first stage of its Springfield library site contract at £219,059,700. Its own award notice in February valued the whole job at £37,454,402.

Both figures are on the public record at Find a Tender, the government’s procurement register. Nothing published by the council explains the gap.

The scheme is 103 council flats on the cleared site of the former Springfield Library, on the west side of Chatham Road at the Sandling Road roundabout. Hill Partnerships Limited is the contractor.

Three notices, three figures

The council’s procurement for the site has produced three notices in 14 months. Each carries a different value.

Bar chart of the three figures on Find a Tender for the Springfield library site scheme, in millions of pounds excluding VAT: tender estimate July 2025, 41.5; contract awarded February 2026, 37.45; stage one contract details notice September 2026, 219.06.
Chart by Maidstone Live
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  • 30 July 2025, tender notice. The council invited bids for design and construction of the scheme with an estimated value of £41.5 million excluding VAT, or £49.8 million with VAT. The notice describes a two-stage route: a pre-construction services agreement for the design stage, then a JCT Design and Build contract for the works.
  • 11 February 2026, contract award notice. Hill Partnerships won with a contract value of £37,454,402 excluding VAT, or £44,945,282.40 including VAT. The award notice records three bids, from Higgins Partnerships, Hill and Lovell Partnerships, none from a small or medium-sized firm. The standstill period ended on 20 February and the estimated contract period runs from 6 March 2026 to 1 December 2029.
  • 22 September 2026, contract details notice. This records “Contract 1. Stage 1 - PCSA”, signed on 25 March 2026 and running for one year from 31 March 2026 to 30 March 2027. The notice gives its value as £219,059,700 excluding VAT and £262,871,640 including VAT. The category is services, and the classifications are construction work and construction consultancy.

A pre-construction services agreement covers the design stage before building starts. The September notice therefore says a single year of design services is worth 5.8 times the whole design-and-build contract awarded in February, and around £2.1 million for each of the 103 flats.

One reading is that the figure was entered in pence rather than pounds: £219,059.70 would be an ordinary fee for a year of pre-construction work on a contract of this size. That is a reading, not a fact. The council has not published a correction, and the notice as filed is what appears on the register. Anyone can report a concern about the notice through the link on its page.

The £219 million figure has already been repeated this week as the value of the scheme. On the council’s own award notice, it is not.

What is being built

Planning permission 23/505821/FULL was validated on 11 January 2024 and permitted on 1 October 2025. It covers:

  • two residential blocks with 103 flats in total
  • Block A, tiered at two, four and five storeys, with 31 flats
  • Block B, tiered at six, eight and ten storeys, with 72 flats
  • 68 car parking spaces in a basement reached from Sandling Road and Radnor Close, plus secure cycle storage
  • balconies or terraces for every flat, biodiverse roofs and sustainable drainage

The tender notice says the mix is 43 per cent one-bed, 47 per cent two-bed and 11 per cent three-bed. The ten-storey block is over 18 metres and counts as a higher-risk building under the Building Safety Act 2022, so the Building Safety Regulator oversees it. Ownership stays with the council, which will maintain the buildings and landscape.

The council bought the site in 2022. An earlier scheme for 170 homes, submitted in 2017, was refused in 2019 on massing, sustainability, connectivity, amenity and heritage grounds. The current design went to public consultation in spring 2023 and drew 189 responses.

We reported in July that Springfield was one of the sites with permission in the council’s housing revenue account programme, and in September that the council had handed over 167 affordable homes in the year to March.

What it means for you

  • If you are on the housing register, these are council-owned flats. The award notice’s estimated end date is 1 December 2029, so they are not a short-term answer. The council’s waiting times are in our council performance report.
  • If you live in Ringlestone or off Sandling Road, the design stage is now under contract and runs to March 2027. Site work follows it. Details of any further applications, including conditions discharges, are on the planning applications page.
  • If you pay council tax in the borough, the figure that matters for the council’s borrowing is the February award: £37.45 million excluding VAT. The September notice is the one to watch for a correction.

Maidstone Live has not seen any statement from the council or Hill on the September figure. This article will be updated with a dated note if either publishes one.